Just Say That You Love Me
by mirandam
Summary: Sarah wanted her fairytale romance, not this. She didn't expect Jareth to be such a bastard every step of the way. SJ Romance, eventually!
1. Dreams VS Reality

Disclaimer- Characters and setting are not my property. Only the plot is.

A/N- I write very fluffy fan fictions, this is the only one that may turn out to be a little bit dark. So if it is fluffy in places, don't be too disturbed!

A/N (2)-- _This chapter is OBSCENELY short_. I can guarantee that each coming chapter will be longer. I just needed to get all my pre-thoughts down and in here and in order.

**Chapter 1: Dreams VS. Reality**

_Don't be afraid of the space between your dreams and reality. If you can dream it, you can make it so._

_-Belva Davis_

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"Spinning Crystals and human to owl transformation, what was I _thinking_?" Sarah snorted.

She dumped a sketchbook and tattered diary into her bedroom waste bin.

She truly was crazy. 6 years after her initial hallucination of the 13 hour Labyrinth, she was 21 and could at last realize that it was all fake.

Jareth. What a silly name, anyhow. But still, she couldn't help but to remember his raw beauty and his arrogance. Sarah still thought about that. That dream. She just didn't understand how it could feel so _real. _She could still taste the tanginess of the peach, and feel Hoggle's hand as she placed her bracelet on him. Hoggle. A sharp wave of memories flooded over her. Sir Didymus, Ludo, and Hoggle. They were her friends, real or not. She curled her nose up in distaste, remembering the bog of eternal stench.

She ripped up a small drawing of her memory of Jareth.

She didn't need this right now. She didn't need to go on a winding trail of melancholy memories. She needed a sedative. With less than 2 days until her impending wedding, she couldn't stop thinking about love. At 15, she dreamt of a Ball. A Masquerade Ball. A Ball at which she found the love of her life, but alas, couldn't obtain for fear of losing her brother, Toby. It was all a dream, but Sarah knew that's how she wanted to feel.

Sarah was to marry in 2 days. She was to marry Jared, a man who resembled Jareth in many ways. His looks, his personality, even his name, but he wasn't like her Jareth enough.

Sarah was currently sitting in her and Jared's apartment. All her memories of the Labyrinth were being flung into the waste bin. Sarah was going to wipe away everything that had anything to do with the Labyrinth.

She needed to forget about Jareth in order to love Jared.

She couldn't compare her reality to a dream.

But it didn't stop her from trying.

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I just needed a simple intro chapter, I can promise that each coming chapter will be longer.(again) 


	2. Take My Mind off Things

_**Chapter 2: Take My Mind off Things **_

_"The difference between fiction and reality? Fiction has to make sense."  
-- Tom Clancy_

* * *

When Jared arrived home that night, he saw Sarah curled up on the couch. She looked like a queen, his wife to be.

Her long brown hair framed her face and her face radiated with a peaceful glow. Her lips were rosy and her skin smooth. Her body, to Jared anyhow, was heavenly. She had put on some weight, which seemed to be an infinite struggle inside herself. Jared liked the curves, particularly. She was beautiful to him.

Stirring in her sleep, Sarah moaned lightly, "Jareth"

Jared dropped onto his knees and planted a soft kiss on Sarah's cheek, thinking she had said Jared, quite an easy mistake to make( Luckily for Sarah ).

Smiling in response to the kiss, she opened her eyes, and found Jared's eyes a few inches away from hers. Sarah's smile slowly fell away, she had thought it was Jareth. seeing the hurt in Jared's eyes she leaned in and gave him a brief kiss on the lips, before sitting up on the couch and stretching.

Looking around her, she saw the papers and drawings scattered haphazardly around the living room. She winced, remembering the reason she threw them out in the first place.

As if noticing this for the first time, Jared looked around the room at the same time, and drinking it in, realized that all her new sketches were either tossed into the garbage, or ripped into indistinguishable pieces. With a sigh, he looked at her, and she just gave him a sheepish smile in return. How was she supposed to tell him that she was ripping up pictrues of her one true love to love him more? It wasn't a conversation she was likely going to have with him.

Sarah spotted something, though, that made her gasp in shock. Her old Labyrinth book. How had it gotten here? She had definitely not brought it over from her dads old house. How did it end up on her appartment table, nevermind in the appartment itself. The book looked just like she remembered it. Old and tattered. Sarah could remember the days of flipping through it, trying to regain the secrets of that wonderful 13 hour Labyrinth.

When Jared proposed to go out to dinner, Sarah graciously agreed. She needed something, _anything, _to take her mind off the labyrinth and the mysterious king.

Returning from dinner later than expected, Sarah and Jared fell into bed, fully clothed, and started talking. Jared's fingers intertwining with her own, and his beautiful eyes staring back at her, Sarah talked of goblins and kings. She had needed to know what his reaction would be. The reaction she had expected was absolutely nothing she had expected.

"You know. I had a dream when I was about 14 that I had wished Carlson away." Jared thought with a frown, thinking of his brother who would have been 12 years his junior.

"I ended up running this incredible maze, and meeting all these goblins as you call them...and meeting up with an incredibly intimidating guy..well..he said he was the Goblin King... It was the scariest dream..and I just couldn't forget it. 2 days later, Carlson was gone. Just vanished."

Jared clenched his eyes shut, remembering the day that his brother was taken from his bed, and never found.

Sarah felt her heart drop, her pulse quicken, and all the blood from her face rush to her toes. It wasn't possible...It couldn't be possible...Jareth? Jared? Carlson?

With a quiet whimper, Sarah buried herself in Jared's arms. Mistaking her whimper for sympathy, rather than fear, he held onto her with a tight hug.

_It just wasn't possible...Was it?_

_

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Thanks for the 10 reviews I recieved last chapter. I appreciated them immensely.  
This chapter isn't as long as I wanted it, but I thought that I could get it up and give someone something to read! 

_  
Thanks Again.  
_


	3. Need to Know

A/N: Okay, so fairly short chapter, I hope it lives up to the expectations of all of you :-) Thanks for all your comments...they mean a lot :-)

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**  
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_**Chapter 3: Need to Know** _

_ "'Beauty is truth, truth beauty,' -- that is all  
Ye know on Earth, and all ye need to know."  
-John Keats_

_**

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**_

1 day. 1 fucking day. 1 day until Sarah's world would come crashing down. She felt like a traitor, thinking about Jared like this. It wasn't his fault that she was having a nervous breakdown.

Sarah had heard about nervous brides, even the ones that went as far as to run away. This was different though.

She needed to know. NEEDED to know about Jareth. She wanted to know if he remembered her and loved her like she did him. With a quick intake of breath, Sarah formulated a plan.

When Jared arrived home later that night, before heading out to his parents house for the night, he picked Sarah up and swung her around. Damn was he excited!

Sarah hugged him with everything she had before she looked straight into his eyes and asked him a favor that could possibly change her life.

"Jared, I want you to wish me away to the Goblin Kingdom."

Jared raised an eyebrow and took one small step back, letting his arms fall to his side.

Sarah wrung out her hands and started pacing back and forth, all the while talking to Jared without making eye contact.

"I had the exact same dream, except about Toby. I want...no...need...to know if Jared and the Goblin Kingdom is real. I know it sounds like bullshit, and just Childs-play, but we both think the exact same thing! What am I supposed to believe now? After what you said about Carlson, I knew that it wasn't all a dream."

By this time, Sarah had reached underneath the couch and took out a piece of paper, and unfolded it. Pieces of tape held it together, and she handed it to Jared.

"Is this what the Goblin King looked like?"

Jared looked at the paper in his hands in shock. Instantly he knew, just KNEW, that Sarah was telling the truth. She captured Jareth's likeness all the way down to his 80's style bangs.

With a trembling hand, he dropped the paper onto the ground. Looking up at Sarah, he saw that she had tears in her eyes. She walked toward him, ready to hug him and comfort him. With a shake, he stepped away from her. He saw the hurt in her eyes, but it was nothing he couldn't live through.

With a sad shake of his head, he hoarsely asked,

"Is this some sort of sick joke, Sarah?"

With a desperate pleading look in her eyes, she said no. No joke.

"Jared, for the last 6 years I have thoroughly convinced myself that I was crazy. When I was 15, I had a dream so vivid, I can still taste the enchanted peach...I had a dream that Toby was kidnapped by goblins and the Goblin King...and this is the way he looked! This is who he was. When you started talking about Carlson and yourself, I knew it wasn't a dream. Jared! He promised me the world! I was 15 and foolish enough to fall in love with this dream...but now I need to know. I NEED to know if he's real."

A look flashed in Jared's eyes, like a trace of jealousy. Jared stared at her,

"Am I not good enough for you? We are getting MARRIED tomorrow, Sarah! You tell me this the night before our WEDDING? You expect me to say go and fall in love with that evil ...THING?... No. I refuse."

Sarah was ready to try another tactic. Hopefully this one would have to be the last.

"Jared! If Jareth's not real...If he's in our imaginations...then saying the words won't do anything! Please, Jareth...I mean..."

But it was already too late, Jared had heard her mistake. With a glance into her eyes, he knew that as much as she needed to know if Jareth was real, Jared himself needed to know twice as badly.

Jared needed to know if Carlson was okay, if it was all his fault, if Sarah was in love with this so-called Goblin King.

With a sad sigh, Jared grabbed Sarah by her upper forearms and pulled her into him, cupping one hand behind her head, he kissed her forehead and pushed her away from him, with one more sigh, Jared spoke the words he spoke more than 10 years ago,

"I wish the goblins would come take you away...RIGHT NOW!"

With one last sob, Jared felt the air around him crackle, as if in anticipation of the coming moments.

Sarah's mouth formed a perfect 'O' of surprise when she saw Jared's eyes wide with fear, and the familiar voice, saying,

"Well, who do we have here?"

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	4. No More Imagining

Hey everyone, I'm sorry for the lack of updates. I hope this chapter is fine by everyone! Thanks so much for reading, and those lovely reviews just keep me going!

A/N: I must apologize for the lines I have to seperate different places in the story, so far theres only one here. Thats down below! If it seems like I'm cutting off the story...Fear not! It's just a change of character/scenery!

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_**Chapter 4: No more Imagining**_

_"Imagination is the one weapon in the war against reality."_  
_-Jules de Gaultier_

* * *

Sarah spun around, and staggered back a few steps into the arms of Jared. He held her tight across the waist. 

Jareth looked almost exactly as they remembered him. Cold, uncaring, and eerily beautiful.

With an arrogant smirk, he produced a crystal out of thin air, and started twirling it in his right hand. Inside the crystal, Sarah could vaguely see the _castle beyond the goblin gates._

Sarah's jaw had clenched and her heart was beating fast and furious. Jared's face was contorted in disbelief.

Jareth took a few steps towards Sarah, and grabbed hold of her arm, "You were wished away, Sarah. It's time to come to the castle."

Jared's arms were wrapped firmly around Sarah, and Jareth noticed this right away. With a sad sigh, the arm that was holding the crystal came back and launched the crystal towards Jared. With Jared's automatic reflexes, he let go of Sarah and shielded his face, waiting for the crystal to make contact...which it never did.

Jareth spun Sarah into his arms, and with a clap of thunder and a blink of an eye, Sarah, Jared, and Jareth were standing on the all-too-familiar hill of where the labyrinth started.

"Well, Well, Jared. You know the rules. But _do _be careful, you wouldn't want to lose your fiancée, just like you lost your brother, would you?"

With a mocking grin, Jareth disappeared with Sarah still in his arms, the last word he heard was a soft murmur of

_...Love...Jared...

* * *

_  
Sarah blinked yet again, and this time she felt solid ground beneath her feet again. Forcing herself away from Jareth, She scrambled backwards, tripping over a small tree root. Landing on her butt, she continued moving backwards, all the while keeping her eyes on Jareth.

"Well, I can't exactly put you in the goblin nursery, could I? How about here?"

Sarah tore her eyes away from Jareth, and looked around her. Sucking in a deep breath, she realized it was just another oubliette. Another oubliette that reeked of Eternal Stench. The only thing that gave her hope was the door in the corner of the oubliette.

Following her gaze, Jareth laughed. A cruel laugh.

"Open that door, Sarah, and the whole bog will flood this place in seconds."

With a mocking smile, he rolled a crystal towards Sarah. Sarah hesitated, looking at it was one thing, but touching it was another.

"You can pick it up, I don't want to hurt you so early in the game!"

Swallowing hard, Sarah reached over and shakily picked up the crystal, looking inside she could see Jared. He was setting off down the hill to find the entrance to the labyrinth. God! How Sarah remembered that route. She thought of it every night in her dreams, replayed it for years, trying to prove to herself she wasn't crazy.

"Y-You weren't s-supposed to be real." She whispered softly.

"What's that? Speak up, I can't hear you."

Swallowing hard she repeated, "You weren't supposed to be real!"

"Well, my dear, guess you were wrong about that!"

He paced the oubliette, although there were only a few steps or so. He had one hand behind his back, and another holding a crystal. Looking at Sarah he said, "after beating the labyrinth and regaining your brother, you left this place in complete ruins. The castle fell, demolishing many houses. The labyrinth, an entity unto itself, rebuilt the castle like I have never seen. Can't you feel it Sarah? Can't you feel it thrum with a new vigor?"

Sarah placed her hands on the wall behind her, and she felt it, she felt the power, excitement, and raw energy flowing through the stones.

"But Sarah, you were never supposed to come back. But you did. And now you must suffer the consequences. You will not be able to help Jared in any way. Now. I'm leaving, but Sarah? Don't expect Jared to win. He lost once before, and I can assure you, he won't win this time."

With a _SLAM! _of the crystal on the ground, he disappeared. Sarah let out a single sob of anguish over her own cursed stupidity.


	5. Curses

_**Chapter 5: Curses **_

With stupidity the gods themselves contend in vain  
-Friedrich Von Schiller

With stupidity the gods themselves contend in vain-Friedrich Von Schiller

Jared closed his eyes as the world began spinning. Throwing his arms out to steady himself against the onslaught of vertigo, he grabbed at the nearest thing. It happened to be an old withered tree standing solidly on the top of a large hill. With the most unsettling feeling imaginable, Jared knew he had been here before. He felt the familiarity, and realized almost immediately where he knew this place from. It was with a cry of surprise that Jared really understood how much this was not a dream, and how it was steadily becoming a nightmare.

Jared looked at the skewed clock beside the tree, with it's 13 hours steadily ticking away, and with a forced sense of vigor, Jared head off the steep decline to the bottom of the hill, to start his journey.

* * *

Jareth sat in his throne, looking over the incompetent fools he called subjects, and growled. It was never meant to be this way. He was not meant to be beat at his own game by a chit of a girl, and nor was she supposed to come back and try to beat him again! It made him absolutely furious.

She left him with a broken heart, pride, and a broken home. It had taken him months to make him stop loving her, and years to regain the labyrinth, but his pride had never mended. It was, indeed, not a good mark on his conscience to realize that without Sarah, his labyrinth may have stayed in the same state of distress had she not beat him.

This time was different though, his labyrinth was in the prime of its power, and Jareth was not about to let Sarah beat him again.

* * *

Down in the dark and uninviting oubliette, Sarah cursed her own stupidity. It was the most foolish, irrational, childish thing to do! Calling on your childhood fear to take you away was not a sensible thing to do. With a cry of frustration, Sarah kicked the only thing available, the stone wall. It was not as satisfying as she would have hoped.

* * *

Jared stumbled to the bottom of the hill, burrs clinging to his jeans. With a shaky breath, he realized that once he was in, it was going to start again. It was going to be another nightmare, and this time his Fiancée was on the line, and he wasn't damned well about to lose her to a creature like Jareth.

Although Jared had been to the Labyrinth before, he wasn't sure of anything. It was like the Labyrinth had rearranged itself, creating a whole new challenge. Spying a large goblin sitting upon a rock, he made his way over to it, and asked,

"Excuse me, but do you know the way into the Labyrinth?"  
"Depends. Who are you?"  
"I'm Jared."

The goblin sighed,  
"that's what I thought..Yeah, the door is this way, follow me"

The goblin struggled onto his feet, and plodded away, Jared following. The goblin, although not one for small talk, was surprised. It was rare to see an adult here. Most of the ones wished away were youngsters by young mothers or frustrated sisters, with a fond smile on that note, he asked,  
"So why 're you here?

Jared winced,  
"I wished away my Fiancée"  
With a loud guffaw and a small chortle, the goblin grinned at Jared,  
"The missus that bad then?"  
Jared knew how silly it had sounded, and explained to the Goblin what the real matter was.

The goblin shook his head, a detail unclear and hazy in his mind. Jared had said that his Fiancée had wanted to come back to the Labyrinth, which meant that she had actually left. The only one to accomplish that feat had been Sarah, the legendary master of the Labyrinth. The goblin sucked in his breath and asked,

"Who is your fiancée. Her name I mean?"  
"Sarah. Sarah Williams"

The goblin exhaled, and promptly passed out. Jared rushed to his side, and grabbed the wrist to find his pulse, and the plastic beaded bracelet which the goblin was wearing caught his eye.

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Oh Yes. It's true. I am updating again. Imagine that. I kinda don't, but thanks everyone. Amazing reviews and good times!


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